We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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I first wrote this article intending it to be a comment on this thread at the Volokh Conspiracy. It grew so big and wandered ‘through every room in the house’, straying away from the specific topic so I decided not to inflict it on them. Instead, Samizdatistas are the lucky beneficiaries. Seriously, I presume most of you will skip it. That is fine. Here is the amendment as it appears in the US Constitution.
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
In reading the Federalist Papers it appears obvious, at least to me, that ‘the militia’ and ‘a well regulated militia’ are two entirely different things. Hamilton clearly describes in #29 a great deal of commitment and training required to “acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia” [my underscore] and speculates that for “the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens” it “would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss”.
In #46 Madison calculates the number of “a militia” at 1/8 of the entire population.
The highest number to which, … a standing army can be carried … does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; … This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence.”
Clearly Hamilton’s “well-regulated militia” and Madison’s “militia” are entirely different and together with the title of the New York statute that Eugene Volokh cites,”An Act for Settling and Regulating the Militia …”, suggests that the degree of regulation of the militia was a continuous scale.
But for those of you who find discussing it a little dry, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Thanks to Glenn Reynolds and Breitbart.tv for the pointer.
The Brave One is a good film, and I would encourage people to go and see it. Even though this means putting money into the pockets of Time Warner, which is hardly my favourite corporation.
– warning: spoilers follow … → Continue reading: The Brave One: a film well worth watching
Burma is a good example of ‘gun control’, i.e. a state of affairs where firearms are a legal monopoly of the government forces. One side has good intentions and the other side has loaded rifles, and the result (so far) has been the same as it was in 1988 – or even back in 1962 when the late General Ne Win first set up his socialist administration.
However, me being a cold hearted man whose mind starts to wander even when shown scenes of murder and other horror, the situation reminds me of the philosophy of David Hume. This mid 18th century Scottish philosopher claimed that government was not based on force – but rather that it was based on opinion. Hume did this to mock the claim that there was a great difference between the ‘constitutional’ government of Britain and the ‘tyranny’ of France – under the skin both sides are basically the same, was his point.
This was part of David Hume’s love of attacking what his opponents (such as Thomas Reid) were to call “Common Sense”. David Hume was involved in what are now called ‘counter intuitive’ positions. Hume claimed (at times) that there was no objective reality – that the physical universe was just sense impressions in the mind. This did not stop him also claiming (at times) that the mind did not exist, in the sense of a thinking being, that a thought did not mean a thinker – that there was no agent and thus no free willed being.
Whether David Hume actually believed any of this – or whether he was just saying to people “you do not have any strong arguments for your most basic beliefs – see how weak reason is”… is not the point here. The point is that many people. including many people who have never heard his name, have been influenced by the ideas of David Hume.
For example, Louis XVI of France did not actively resist his enemies, going so far as ordering others, such as the Swiss Guard, not to resist, because he had read David Hume’s History of England – it was his favourite book. In his history Hume claimed that Charles the First did not get killed because he lost the Civil War (as a simple minded ordinary man might think) – but because he had fought back against his enemies at all. If he had not resisted his enemies, they would have seen no need to kill him (a clever counter intuitive position).
So Louis XVI did not resist. It is possible that he was given cause to doubt Hume’s wisdom right before his enemies murdered him, and so many others, but we will never know the answer to that I suppose.
In Burma, as in so many other places, many people seem to have thought that opinion, namely the good intentions of the majority, were more important than firepower – they appear to be mistaken.
“You are showing lack of respect for the dead” – perhaps, but I am warning people not to stand against men with rifles when you are unarmed. Get the firepower, one way or another, and learn how to use it, then you may have a chance at liberty – you can not have it, or keep it, without firepower. And that remains true even if you win some soldiers over to your side with appeals to their reason.
David Shayler, the ex-M15 spook, always struck me as being only 90 cents to the dollar. I bumped into this character a few years ago at a bash hosted by Privacy International, a perfectly sensible campaigning group. This item if it is true (via the Register), suggests I am right about the dark-haired one.
Methinks M needs to tighten up the recruitment criteria.
A public service warning! You surf the internet at random using FireFox (which generally you should), you may stumble across a website, which could infest your machine with a virus. But this is nothing new, I have heard about these evil websites full of Trojans and other nasty viruses and I know better… I hear you cry. Apparently, this particular attack does not require a download. Which means that is unlikely to be trapped by your anti-virus software, certainly in the short-term.
Protecting yourself for now is fairly simple. You will need to make a trivial modification to your FireFox settings.
To do this, start FireFox, enter the URL “about:config”, scroll down, and for each of the following entries make sure it is set to “true”.
If it isn’t, right-click the line and choose “Toggle”, which will set the value to “true”
network.protocol-handler.warn-external-default
network.protocol-handler.warn-external.mailto
network.protocol-handler.warn-external.news
network.protocol-handler.warn-external.nntp
network.protocol-handler.warn-external.snews
This will at least give you a warning that Firefox is being asked to do something suspicious; you will have to judge for yourself whether it is nasty.
Thanks to Alec Muffett and Geoff Arnold for the heads up and advice.
An article, found by via The Register , gives a new example of a taser self-defence device that is being marketed to women – in pink. That strikes me as pretty patronising, although maybe not deliberately so. After all, why would not any woman want a taser in a suitably no-nonsense colour like black or red? The makers of these things have obviously not met my wife.
As far as I know, use of tasers by UK citizens other than the police or armed forces is illegal (I would be interested to know what the law is in various places). There is still quite a bit of controversy about their use by the police here. Here is an article on the subject.
It will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that when I come to the USA, I use the opportunity to and do some shootin’ and visit my weapons-in-exile (such as one of which is featured on the Karl Popper book at the top of the page, although technically that particular 9mm weapon belongs to my fairer half, my otherwise identical piece is in .40 cal). Of course this trip was no exception and so I have been rescheduled my ongoing homages to the Yuengling Brewing Company until the evening and headed to one of the more remote parts of Pennsylvania to frighten the wild life and try to resurrect some rusty rifle and pistol skills.
 As mere possession of a handgun is illegal, it is at times like this that just how far Britain has fallen really hits home. For all its many and variegated flaws, in the USA enough people with some attachment to liberty have managed to fight off the worst excesses of those authoritarians who favour crime victim disarmament. It is interesting that many PA Democrats are actually quite pro-gun, even though many politicos in that sinkhole called Philadelphia are quite authoritarian and anti-gun (note that NRA ratings are not all that good an indication of a politician’s true position). It is good to see that the right to self-defence and to own and shoot guns is widely respected even on the political left.
However man does not live by guns alone and the USA has many other things to offer…
Apple pie and a dawg… how American is that, eh?
Big Ice Cream, Big Bikes, Short Shorts… I must be in the USA again! Back in London tomorrow. Oh crap.
I am an avid reader of science fiction, and the use of futuristic fiction as a source of ideas is a welcome development. The best science fiction is that which explores the boundaries of our concepts whether in the mind, the computer or how we relate to each other. This is one of the advantages of defending the freedom of the mind, the expression of which is usually described as freedom of speech
Anti-terror chiefs in the United States have hired a team of America’s most original sci-fi authors to dream up techniques to help them combat al-Qaeda.
Ideas so far include mobile phones with chemical weapons detectors and brain scanners fitted to airport sniffer dogs, so that security staff can read their minds.
The writers have also put government scientists in touch with Hollywood special-effects experts, to work on better facial-recognition software to pick out terrorists at airports.
The Department of Homeland Security has set aside around $10 million – one tenth of its research budget – for projects dreamt up by the best brains in futuristic fiction.
Whilst DARPA is a useful channel for futuristic ideas, ten percent of a research budget handed over to any project is not such a good idea. Once the institutional apparatus is set up, with a secretariat to flesh out the innovative ideas, and the bureaucratic accretions which turn gold to mud, what will be left. A few nuggets from the civil service quicksand.
More useful is the Sigma organisation set up by Andrew Arlen some years ago, if it survives the seductive sirenic call of the public sector:
Mr Pournelle said the facial recognition plan was one of a number that aimed to replicate ideas seen on television shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and NCIS, a similar show. "In real life, the computers are still nowhere near as good as they are on TV," he said. "It’s just one of several high risk, high pay-off projects we have suggested.
He is a member of Sigma, a group set up by fellow writer Arlan Andrews to pursue "science fiction in the national interest. Mr Andrews, who predicted handheld, electronic books long before they became a reality, said: “We spend our entire careers living in the future. Those responsible for keeping the nation safe need people to think of crazy ideas.”
How unusual that CSI, paraded as an authentic and naturalistic program, can be classified as science fiction, on the grounds that the technology deployed is probably three or five years ahead of our current capabilities. Yet, the same confusion may dazzle the Department of Homeland Security. The politicians will reach for science fictional solutions when actual success probably stems from incremental graft on current processes and clear procurement and privatisation.
Research is often touted as a PR solution for public sector problems. Treat this with scepticism.
This quote is from a year ago, January.
Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. “I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.”
And this editorial was written last August.
We must give due criticism to the University for its decisions that put students in greater danger than was necessary. By that I am not so much referring to the decision to allow morning classes to take place, but rather the decades-old policy that prohibits students, faculty and staff from legally carrying firearms on campus. This ban even goes so far as to include those who have valid Concealed Handgun Permits.
For those of you who have not heard yet, 32 people died at Virginia Tech today.
Here was Virginia Tech’s solution to a mass killer on campus.
Guns cause violence, like flies cause garbage
– Zink Mitchell
This story catches the eye:
The UK’s Jedi community today expressed concerns that government plans to ban Samurai swords could hinder their freedom to wield lightsabres in public.
The UK’s Home Office today issued a consultation paper ahead of legislation intended to ban Samurai blades by the end of the year. In a bid to “protect the public”, replica Samurai swords will become illegal to import, sell and hire in Britain.
The quote marks around “protect the public” are deserved. Quite how such a ban will “protect” anyone is a mystery. The ban on handguns has not led to a dramatic fall in gun-crime, as the recent spate of shootings in London demonstrate all too plainly. If swords are banned to prevent crimes, why not go the whole hog and ban kitchen knives?
Come to that, why not take up the idea of banning opposable thumbs? Human beings – we are not a feature, but a bug!
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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